Theorycrafting, Computations, and General Observations from a Shadow Point of View

A Look at Haste Breakpoints in 5.2

With Patch 5.2 and Throne of Thunder somewhere between 9 and 23 days away from release, now is as good of a time as any to take a closer look at what Haste Breakpoints Shadow Priests should be aiming for with their shiny new Tier 15 levels of gear. Some of you may remember seeing this post from last August where I discussed Haste Breakpoints specifically for Tier 14 raids. This image has had a lot of legs all over WoW releated websites on the Internet in the past 6 months:

This has been, without a doubt, the most informative and useful piece of information I’ve posted on this blog. Since higher levels of Haste will be available soon, this tired old table is in need of an upgrade. What complicates this process of determining Haste Breakpoints is twofold:

Between these two changes/additions and Trolls having access to Berserking, that makes four different possible percentage haste procs or cooldowns that could be used in conjunction with one another. Before I go any further, allow me to present the new and expanded 5.2 Haste Breakpoints chart:

Knowing about these new Haste Breakpoints now makes it more difficult to have a fixed number to shoot for when gearing. Early simulations are showing that Haste is our best stat, especially if you choose Power Infusion out of the Tier5/Level75 Talents, so Haste stacking once you’ve reached one breakpoint won’t be as poor a choice as it currently is after 8085 Haste in 5.1 . In building profiles for 5.2 out of gear that has been datamined, I’ve been able to, through extreme Haste stacking, to get past the Vampiric Touch+12 Haste Breakpoint with Power Infusion + Berserking + Bloodlust + Sinister Primal Diamond procs happening, or 12362 Haste rating (higher may be possible if you gem straight Haste or Haste/Int). For my profile, though, I’ve settled on 10466 Haste rating, putting it squarely in getting Vampiric Touch+4 with the Legendary Meta Gem proc or Bloodlust active; this also grants Vampiric Touch+2 without any extra Haste procs/buffs, and Devouring Plague+10 and Shadow Word: Pain+10 when you get lucky (or are a slightly less lucky, but are a Troll) and have the Legendary Meta Gem proc while Bloodlust is active and have either Power Infusion or Berserking off cooldown and available for use — 16 ticks of Devouring Plague in ~6seconds is too valuable to pass up, especially if you require massive healing for some reason.

Here are my recommendations for Haste Breakpoints to shoot for, depending on race, talents, and if you have the Legendary Meta Gem:

10437 Haste – This will grant you the same ticks as a baseline listed above (+2), but will also grant you Vampiric Touch+4 when Bloodlust or your Legendary Meta Gem is active. This is what I’m going to be recommending as the default target to shoot for for 5.2.

EDIT 2013/02/24 – Left out PI+Berserking+Bloodlust/LMG. Added to the chart.EDIT 2013/02/26 – Per request, I’ve added another chart that includes breakpoints for T14 4P. From this chart I have omitted the LMG, though, since really if you have the LMG you probably won’t be dorking around raids with the T14 4P equipped.

28 Responses to A Look at Haste Breakpoints in 5.2

thanks for the work u’ve done on this topic, but may u please tell me what’s the haste breakpoint for “PI AND Berserking AND Bloodlust OR LMG”, imo its gonna be the most common situation for trolls (as opener PI+BERS+BL, or in later game PI+BERS+LMG)

When you have 4P T14, the haste breakpoints shift. VT goes from having 5 ticks over 15 seconds to 6 ticks over 18 seconds (same as SWP w/o 4P T14), while SWP goes from 6 ticks over 18sec to 7 ticks over 21sec. When this happens, breakpoints change. SWP’s become a whole new set (6652 for SWP+2, I.E. 7+2 ticks), while VT assumes the same breakpoints that SWP had (8085 for VT+2, I.E. 6+2 ticks).

General rule of thumb we’ve been telling is if you have 30k+ Spell Power (~ilvl 505 – 507, depending on weapon), you should switch to the Haste Gems (R: Haste/Int, Y: Haste, and B: Haste/Spirit). Once you get up to ~515-517ilvl it might be worthwhile to gem straight +320 Haste gems unless the socket bonus is +int or +haste.

Personally, I’m gemming the Haste combo gems (H/I, H, H/S) right now and having very good results.

Hi, great guide.
I have a question though, the valor trinket with haste proc(http://www.wowhead.com/item=94510) provide 8800 haste for 10sec so thats basically a little better than berserking, also procs more, so having this trinket means that the same haste caps applies as if I’d have berserking, right?

For a rough estimate, yes. Really though, as you’ve already alluded to, it isn’t for one simple reason: Berserking’s Haste bonus is multiplicative not additive. The value of Berserking is more at 10,000 haste than it is at 9,000 Haste. For exact amounts you’d need to Math it all out.

I’m trying to find time to do a post talking about Trinkets (mostly RPPM), but could include a chart that shows the Haste breakpoints you can reach with that trinket as well.

As a Pandaren without the 4pc T15 and no legendary, I currently sit at 29,461 Spellpower with raid buffs. I have already geared for the 10,437 breakpoint and can hit it with the gear I’ve got while using full haste gems. Should I continue to gear that way, or wait until I have a bit more spellpower?

The reason for Mastery > Crit when you have UVLS and/or LMG is fairly straight forward:

UVLS – When you get the buff, you’re already at the maximum Crit chance so any Crit rating you have from gear is wasted. Since we’re using this to primarily cast SWP on to all available targets (to generate SAs to leverage our T15 2P bonus), those SWP ticks will do more damage overall if we get more Mastery procs (more chances to get additional SAs, since we’re already crit-capped for the initial tick for the first 6 ticks). The same is true with VT and the T15 4P, because we can get more VT Mastery ticks which each have a 10% chance to spawn an additional SA.

LMG – Our regular meta gem grants +3% crit damage, but LMG does not. This causes crit, over all, to lose a large part of its incentive as a stat to be stacking.

What makes the tipping point on this so much more marked is that it takes only 333.5 Mastery rating to gain 1% Mastery, but it takes nearly double (600 Crit rating) to gain 1% Crit. If these two ratios were closer, it might be a different situation.

I have a quick question about haste and the way it affects talents. While I realize that more haste = faster MF casts, and so gives you more damage with Solace and Insanity, is there a point at which high haste mathematically dictates that you take From Darkness; Comes Light and Divine Insight? I’ve noticed that I get far more procs now that I have somewhere around 14k haste and was wondering if the high amount of orb generation (combined with being able to cast on the move) was beneficial or if Solace and Insanity was still “better”.

I ask because even for most of the fights, there are quite a few mechanics which force me to cancel MF casts, or prohibit me from casting them in the first place, which severely limits the amount of damage Solace and Insanity is allowing me to do during the periods that I can actually get DP up, whereas the other two talents allow me to gain orbs faster and occasionally give me more movement DPS.

I’ve found that with taking DI over PI and Solace over FDCL actually allows me to move well enough while still putting out the dmg needed to keep my numbers high. Plus with your haste the way it is, I would imagine that you are around 1sec casts of both MB and VT so even without haste procs you would still be able to keep them rotated well while trying to avoid or get in position. In the end though my numbers are adjusted by an 11.5k +/- Haste rating and a 4pc with the LMG. I and although I dont have logs atm for my SPriest I am honest when saying that I am avg’ing only 12k dps off my simmed numbers. That is also with reapplying DoTs when the SPA trinket procs as well as the LMG and also again right before they wear off. Keep me up to date … Im always on this thread because I min-max my haste too much haha.